After that evening Trirodov, suppressing his devotion to quiet loneliness, once more began to visit the Rameyevs. He resisted no longer the all-powerful desire to see Elisaveta, to look into the depth of her blue eyes, to listen to the golden sonorousness of her words, and to feel the breathing and the witchery of her fresh, primitive strength. It was so pleasant to look upon her simple attire, upon the trusting openness of her shoulders, upon the light tan of her feet, and upon the austere outlines of her face.
Elisaveta’s sunlit depth became transformed for Trirodov into a blue, fathomless height. Elisaveta’s love grew stronger; to grow stronger was its desire, and it wished to surmount all intolerable obstacles.
Rameyev looked at Elisaveta and Trirodov, and he was consumed by a strange, mature joy. He seemed to think:
“They will marry and bring me grandchildren.”
There were already certain hours in which they expected him. He and Elisaveta often remained alone. Something in their natures drew them apart from other people, whether strangers or kin. They would go off somewhere into a neglected part of the garden, where under the spread net of superb black poplars the agreeable aroma of thyme reached them with a gentle poignancy—and here they loved to chat with one another.
Had he been alone instead of with Elisaveta, he could not have expressed his thoughts more simply or more candidly. They spoke of so many things—they tried, as it were, to contain the whole world within the rigid bounds of rapid words.
As they strolled along the high bank of the river, under the broad shadows of the mighty black poplars and strange black maples, and listened to the loud, cheerful twitter of the birds that came to the bushes, Elisaveta said:
“The sensation of existence and of the fullness and joy of life is delicious. A new sky seems to have opened above my head, and for the first time the violets and the lilies of the valley besprinkled with their first dew have begun to bloom for me; and for the first time May-drinks made from herbs by young housewives taste delicious.”
Trirodov smiled sadly and said:
“I feel the heavy burden of life. But what’s to be done? I don’t know whether life can be made more easy and tranquil.”
“Why desire ease and tranquillity in life?” asked Elisaveta. “I want fire and passion, even if I perish. Let me become consumed in the fire of rapture and revolt.”
“Yes,” said Trirodov, “it is necessary to discover all the possibilities and forces within oneself, and then a new life may be created. I wonder if life is necessary?”
“And what is necessary?” asked Elisaveta.
“I don’t know,” answered Trirodov sadly.
“What do you desire?” she asked again.
“Perhaps I desire nothing,” said Trirodov. “There are moments when I seem to expect nothing from life; I do what I do unwillingly, as if it were a disagreeable action.”
“How do you live then?” asked Elisaveta in astonishment.
He replied:
“I live in a strange and unreal world. I live—but life goes past me, always past me. Woman’s love, the fire of youth, the stirring of young hopes, remain for ever within the forbidden boundaries of unrealized possibilities—who knows?—perhaps unrealizable.”
The sad, flaming moments of silence were marked by the heavy beats of Elisaveta’s heart. She felt intensely vexed by these sad words of weakness and of dejection, and she did not believe them. But Trirodov went on speaking, and his beautiful but hopelessly sad words sounded like a taunt to her:
“There is so much labour and so little consolation. Life passes by like a dream—a senseless, tormenting dream.”
“If only a radiant dream! If only a tempestuous dream!” exclaimed Elisaveta.
Trirodov smiled and said:
“The time of awakening is drawing nearer. Old age comes with its depression; and the empty, meaningless life wanders on towards unknown borders. You ask yourself, and it seems hopeless to find a worthy answer: ‘Why do I live in this strange and chance form? Why have I chosen my present lot? Why have I done this?’”
“Well, who is at fault here?” asked Elisaveta.
Trirodov replied:
“The conscience, ripened to universal fullness, says that every fault is my fault.”
“And that every action is my action,” added Elisaveta.
“An action is so impossible!” said Trirodov. “A miracle is impossible. I wish to break loose from the claims of this dull existence.”
“You speak of love,” said Elisaveta, “as of a thing unrealized. But you had a wife.”
“Yes,” said Trirodov sadly. “The short moments passed by rapidly. Was there love? I cannot say. There was passion, a smouldering—and death.”
“Life will again bring its delights to you,” said Elisaveta confidently.
And Trirodov answered:
“Yes, it will be a different life, but what’s that to me? If one could only be quite different, and simple—say a small child, a boy with bare feet, with a fishing-rod in his hands, his mouth yawning good-naturedly. Only children really live. I envy them frightfully. I envy frightfully the simple folk, the altogether simple folk, remote from these cheerless comprehensions of the intellect. Children live—only children. Ripeness already marks the beginning of death.”
“To love—and to die?” asked Elisaveta with a smile.
She listened to the sound of these beautiful, sad words and repeated them quietly:
“To love—and to die!”
And as she listened again, she heard him say:
“She loved—and she died.”
“What was the name of your first wife?” asked Elisaveta.
She was amazed at herself for uttering the word “first,” as there had been only one; and her face became suffused slowly with pink.
Trirodov fell into thought; he appeared not to have heard her question, and was silent. Elisaveta did not repeat it. He suddenly smiled and said:
“You and I feel ourselves to be living people here, and what can there be for us more certain than our life, our sensation of life? And yet it is possible that you and I are not living people at all, but only characters in a novel, and that the author of this novel is not at all concerned with its external verisimilitude. His capricious imagination had taken this dark earth for its material, and out of this dark, sinful earth he grew these strange black maples and these mighty black poplars and these twittering birds in the bushes and us.”
Elisaveta looked at him in astonishment and said with a smile:
“I hope that the novel will be interesting and beautiful. Let it even end in death! But tell me, why do you write so little?”
With unexpected passion, almost with exasperation, Trirodov replied:
“Why should I write volumes of tales on how they fell in love and why they fell out of love, and all that? I write only that which comes from myself, that which has not yet been said. So much has already been said; it is far better to add a simple word of one’s own than write volumes of superfluities.”
“Eternal themes are always one and the same,” said Elisaveta. “Do they not constitute the content of great art?”
“We never originate,” said Trirodov. “We always appear in the world with a ready inheritance. We are the eternal successors. That is why we are not free. We see the world with others’ eyes, the eyes of the dead. But I live only when I make everything my own.”
And while these two spent their hours in conversing, Piotr usually made his way somewhere to the top of the house. He sometimes descended with his eyes red—red from tears or from the vigorous, high wind. His days dragged on miserably. His hate and jealousy of Trirodov now and again tormented him.
Piotr sometimes made unpleasant, pitiful scenes before Elisaveta. He loved her and he hated her. He would have killed her—had he dared! And he had not the force to hate either Elisaveta or Trirodov to the bitter end.
When he learned to know Trirodov better his hate lost something of its venom, his malice no longer irritated him like nettles. He looked with curiosity upon them and began to understand. The agony of his unconscious fury was replaced by a clear contemplation of the separating abyss; and this made him even more miserable.
He decided to go away; he made the decision again and again, but always remained there—restless and yearning.
As for Misha, he fell quite in love with Trirodov. He liked to remain with Elisaveta in order to talk about him.
One evening Piotr came to Trirodov’s house. He did not like to go there, for such antagonistic feelings wrestled in his soul! But common courtesy made the visit necessary.
Again a discussion was started. In Piotr’s opinion revolution was to the detriment of religion and culture. It was a tedious, unnecessary discussion. But Piotr could never resist uttering malicious words against the extremes of the “liberating movement.”
He felt awkward during the whole visit. He wished to handle something all the time and to be doing something. His restlessness tormented him in a strange way. Now he picked up one trifle from the table, now another, and put it down again. He took a prism in his hand. Trirodov trembled. He said something quietly and inaudibly. Piotr did not hear, but kept on looking in astonishment at the heavy prism in his hand; and as he turned it over and over he wondered at the reason of its weight. Trirodov trembled nervously. Piotr, in turning the prism rather awkwardly, struck it against the edge of the table. Trirodov shivered, shouted something incoherently, and, snatching the prism from Piotr’s hands, said in an agitated voice:
“Please put it down!”
Piotr looked in astonishment at Trirodov, who was visibly confused. Piotr smiled unwillingly and asked:
“Why, what is it?”
“How should I tell you!” said Trirodov. “It is connected with ... Please forgive my sharpness. I thought you were going to drop it, and I wanted to.... It seems like a whim.... Of course it is really nothing ... but it is connected with an old episode in my life. Really, I don’t know why I keep these ugly things on my table. But there are such intimate memories ... you understand.... Still, I’m so very sorry....”
Piotr listened in perplexity. Suddenly he realized that it was rude to be silent for so long, and he made haste to say, not without embarrassment:
“Please don’t think about it. I quite well understand that there are things which.... But if you find it difficult or unpleasant to speak about it, then please....”
Trirodov said a few more incoherent, confused words of apology to Piotr and thanked him. He breathed a sigh of relief when Stchemilov was announced.
Piotr let loose his irritation at the new-comer with the ironic question:
“Again free? For how long?”
“I’ve skipped,” answered Stchemilov calmly. “I’m leading an illegal life now.”
Piotr soon left.
“To-day?” asked Stchemilov. “Here?”
“Yes, we’ll meet here to-day,” replied Trirodov.
“He hasn’t left yet, and there are several matters and reports to attend to. It is necessary to arrange a meeting and to let various people know about it.”
“You have a convenient house here,” said Stchemilov. “May I help myself?” he added, pointing at the box of cigars as he lounged back comfortably on the large sofa. “Most convenient,” he repeated, as he lit his cigar. “They don’t suspect us as yet, but if they should pay you a visit, there are so many exits and entrances here and out-of-the-way nooks.... Very convenient indeed. It is easy to hide things here—no comparison at all with my little trunk.”
The town was in a state of unrest: strikes were in the air, patriotic demonstrations were held. Its outer environs were visited by suspicious-looking characters; these distributed proclamations, mostly of an illiterate nature, in the villages. The proclamations threatened incendiarism if the peasants did not revolt. The incendiaries were to be “students,” discharged from the factories on account of the strikes. The peasants believed the announcement. In some of the villages watchmen were engaged to catch the incendiaries at night.
Ostrov began to play a noticeable rôle in town. He quickly squandered the money he received from Trirodov in drink and in other ways. He did not dare as yet to visit Trirodov again, but appeared to be in an expectant mood, and remained in town.
It was here that Ostrov met his old friend Yakov Poltinin.
Yakov Poltinin and two other members of the Black Hundred were sent from the capital at the request of Kerbakh and Zherbenev. The apparent purpose of this request was to establish a connexion between the local section of the All-Russian Black Hundred union—organized by Kerbakh, Zherbenev, and Konopatskaya, the wife of a general—with the central office of the organization. The actual purpose, however, as understood by all these respected folk, though they ventured to do little more than hint of it to one another, was to establish—with the help of the trio—a patriotic movement; in short, to strike a blow at theintelligentsia.
Yakov Poltinin took Ostrov with him to visit the families of the patriots. A company of suspicious characters was in town—ready to do anything they were bidden. Yakov Poltinin led Ostrov also among this company.
In the course of the company’s friendly carouse at Poltinin’s apartments in a dirty little house on the outskirts of the town, the idea of stealing the sacred ikon came into some one’s mind. Poltinin said:
“There’s no end of precious stones on it of all sorts—diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. It took hundred of years to collect them. Little Mother Russia, orthodox Russia, has done her best.”
The thief Potseluytchikov affirmed:
“It’s certainly worth not less than two million.”
“You’re putting it on rather thick,” declared Ostrov incredulously.
“Not at all,” said Poltinin with a knowing look. “Two million is putting it mildly—it’s more likely worth three.”
“And how are you going to dispose of it?” asked Ostrov.
“I know how,” said Poltinin confidently. “Of course you’d get a trifle compared with its real value—still we ought to get a half-million out of it.”
This was followed by blasphemous jests.
Yakov Poltinin had for some time entertained the secret ambition of accomplishing something on a grand scale, something that would cause a lot of talk. It is true the murder of the Chief of Police created a deep impression. Still, it was hardly as important as the affair he had in mind. To steal and destroy the miracle-working ikon—that would be something to crow about! Poltinin said:
“The Socialist Revolutionaries are certain to be blamed for it. Expropriation for party purposes—why not? As for us, no one will even suspect us.”
“The priests will never get over it,” declared Molin, a former instructor, who was a drunkard and a thief—a jail-bird deprived of his legal rights.
The friends began preparations for the projected theft. Now one of them, now another, developed the habit of frequenting the monastery. Ostrov especially received an eager welcome there. He pleased, by his external piety, the older monks who were in authority. There were a number of convivial monks who were especially fond of Ostrov. The monks advised him to join the local union of the Black Hundred. They said that it would be pleasing to God. They engaged him in religious and patriotic conversations and invited him to drink with them.
Poltinin and Potseluychikov were also well received in the monastery.
Strange threads are woven into the relations of people at times. Although Piotr Matov met Ostrov under unfriendly circumstances, Ostrov managed to scrape up an acquaintance even with him. It reached a point when Piotr even agreed to make a journey with Ostrov to the monastery.
Glafira Pavlovna Konopatskaya, the rich widow of a general, was an energetic, power-loving woman, and enjoyed considerable influence in town. She was a most generous contributor to the various enterprises of the Black Hundred. Her house served as the meeting-place of the local branch of this All-Russian organization as well as of another secret society, which bore the elaborate name of “The Union of Active Combat with Revolution and Anarchy.”
The initiation ceremony of the union was very elaborately exulting. Especial efforts were made to attract working men. Each new member was presented with a badge, a Browning revolver, and a little money.
The local patriots used to say about Glafira Pavlovna’s house:
“Here dwells the Russian spirit, here it smells of Russia!”21
After the meeting it usually smelt of vodka and shag.
Some of the working men joined these unions for material reasons, others from ignorance. The Black Hundred had but a few members from among the working class by conviction. The Union of Active Combat attracted people who served now one side, now the other, people like Yakov Poltinin, and even two or three confirmed revolutionaries. They accepted the Brownings and handed them over to members of revolutionary organizations. Members of the union did not find this out until quite late.
Kerbakh and Zherbenev were the most frequent guests at Glafira Pavlovna’s cosy, hospitable house. Evil tongues made slander of this, and associated her name now with Kerbakh, now with Zherbenev. But this was a calumny. Her heart had only a place for a young official who served as a private secretary to the Governor.
Once after dinner at Konopatskaya’s, Kerbakh and Zherbenev were telling Glafira Pavlovna about Ostrov. Kerbakh was the first to broach the subject:
“I have in view a man whom I should like to call to your attention.”
“I too know a lively chap,” said Zherbenev.
Kerbakh, annoyed at the interruption, looked none too amiably at Zherbenev, and went on:
“He didn’t at all please me at first.”
“My friend also did not appeal to me at the beginning,” said Zherbenev, who would not stay repressed.
“To look at him you might think that he’s a cut-throat,” said Kerbakh.
“That describes my man too,” announced Zherbenev, as if he were announcing something gay and pleasant.
“But at heart,” went on Kerbakh, “he is an ingenuous infant and an enthusiastic patriot.”
“Well, well, and mine’s like that too,” chimed in Zherbenev.
Glafira Pavlovna smiled graciously at both of them.
“Whom are you talking about?” asked Kerbakh at last, rather annoyed at his companion.
Zherbenev replied:
“There is a chap here—what’s his name? You remember we met him at the pier some time ago. He was rather interested in Trirodov.”
“You mean Ostrov?” ventured Kerbakh.
“That’s the fellow,” said Zherbenev.
“I also meant him,” said Kerbakh.
“Excellent!” exclaimed Zherbenev. “We seem to agree about him. So you see, Glafira Pavlovna, we ought to invite him into our union. He would be a most useful man. Once mention Jews to him and he begins to howl like a dog on a chain.”
“Of course we ought to have him,” decided Glafira Pavlovna. “It is just such people that we want.”
That was how Ostrov came to be admitted into the union. He worked very zealously on its behalf.
One of the chief functions of the Black Hundred was to lodge information against certain people. They informed the Governor and the head of the District Schools that Trirodov’s wards had been at the funeral of the working men killed in the woods.
The colony established by Trirodov had for some time been a source of great annoyance and scandal to the townsfolk. Complaints had been lodged with the authorities even earlier. Ostrov communicated considerable information, mostly invented by himself or by the alert townsmen. The head of the schools sent an order to the Headmaster of the National Schools to make an investigation. The Governor took other measures. Clouds were beginning to gather over Trirodov’s colony.
The union also made no little effort to arouse the hooligan part of the population against the Jews and against theintelligentsia.
The town was in a state of ferment. The Cossacks often paraded the streets. The working men eyed them with hostility. Some one spread rumours about town that preparations were being made for an armed revolt. Trifling causes led to tragic collisions.
One evening the Summer Garden was full of people; they were strolling or else listening to the music and to the songs in the open-air theatre. The evening was quiet and the sky still red. Just outside the rail-fence the dust was flying before the wind, and settled now on the pointed leaves of the acacia-trees, now on the small, light purple flowers near the road.
There was a rose-red glow in the sky; the road stretched towards it; and the grey of the dust mingling with the red glow produced a play of colour very agreeable to the eye.
A red giant genie broke his vessel with its Solomon’s seal, freed himself, and stood on the edge of the town; he laughed soundlessly yet repugnantly. His breath was like the smoky breath of a forest fire. But he made sentimental grimaces, tore white petals from gigantic marguerites, and whispered in a hoarse voice which stirred the blood of the young:
“He loves me—he loves me not; he will cut me up—he will hang me.”
But the people did not see him. They were looking at the sky and saying:
“How superb! I love nature! And do you love nature?”
Others looked on indifferently and thought that it did not matter. The lovers of nature bragged before these because they admired the splendid sunset and were able to enjoy nature. They said to the others:
“You, old chap, are a dry stick. I suppose you’d rather go to a stuffy room and play cards.”
The promenaders strolled on, crowding and jostling each other; they were flaunting their gaiety. There was a cheerful hum, and young girls, amused by schoolboys and officials, giggled. Grey devilkins mingled with the crowd, and when the little jokers-pokers hopped on the girls’ shoulders and poked their shaggy and ticklish little paws into the corsage under the chemise the girls raised piercing screams. They were dressed prettily and lightly, in holiday order. Their high breasts outlined under their coloured textures taunted the youths.
An officer of the Cossacks was among those on the promenade. He had had a drop too much, which made his face red. He was in a gay mood, and he began to boast:
“We’ll cut their heads off, yes, of all of them!”
The petty tradesmen treated him to drinks, embraced him, and said to him:
“Cut their throats. Do us the favour. Make a good job of it. It will serve these anathemas right too! As for the women and the girls, give them a hiding—the hotter the better.”
There was a continuous change of amusements, each noisier and duller than the one before. Now in the theatre, now in the open, they played a stupid but obscene vaudeville piece, and vicious topical songs were sung (a thunder of applause); an animated chansonnette-singer screeched and pulled about with her naked, excessively whitened shoulders, and winked with her exaggeratedly painted eyes; a woman acrobat, raising her legs, attired in pink tights, above her head, was dancing on her hands.
Everything was as if the town were not under guard and as if the Cossacks were not riding about in the streets.
Suddenly some one in the depth of the garden raised a cry.
A frightful confusion spread among the crowd. Many darted impetuously towards the exit. Others jumped over the fence. Suddenly the crowd, with frenzied cries, came sweeping in retreat from the exits back into the depth of the garden.
Cossacks darted in from somewhere and, crying savagely, made their way along the garden paths. Their sudden appearance gave the impression that they were waiting somewhere near by for the command. Their knouts began to work rapidly. The thin textures upon the girls’ shoulders were rent apart and delicate bodies were unbared, and beautiful blue-and-red spots showed themselves on the white-pink skin like quickly ripened flowers. Drops of blood, large like bilberries, splattered into the air, which had already quenched its thirst on the evening coolness, on the odour of the foliage and the aroma of artificial scents. Delicately shrill, loud sobs were the accompaniment to the dull, flat lashings of whips across the bodies.
They threw themselves this way and that way, they ran where they could. Several were caught—ragged young men and girls with short hair. Two or three of the girls were caught and beaten in error: they were from the most peaceful, even respected, families in town. These were afterwards permitted to go free.
The hooligans were making merry in a dirty, ill-smelling beerhouse. They were celebrating something or another, were jingling their money, discussing future earnings, and laughing uproariously. One table was especially absorbed in its noisy gaiety. There sat the celebrated town-rowdy Nil Krasavtsev with three of his friends. They drank, and sang hooligan songs, then paid their bill and went out. One could hear their savage outbursts:
“The Jew dogs are rebels, they are against the Tsar.”
“The Jews want to get hold of everything for themselves.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad thing to cut up a Jewess!”
“The Jews want to take over the whole earth.”
It had grown dark. The hooligans went into the main street, the Sretenka. It was very quiet, and only a few passers-by were to be met with; people stood here and there at their gates and talked. A Jewish widow sat at the gate of a house and chatted with her neighbour, a Jewish tailor. Her children, a whole throng of them, one smaller than the other, played about here, deeply wrapt in their own affairs.
Nil walked up to the Jewess and shouted:
“You dog of a Jew, pray to God for the orthodox Tsar!”
“What do you want of me?” cried the Jewess. “I’m not touching you; you had better go away!”
“What’s that you say?” shouted the hooligan.
A broad knife was lifted in the darkness and, gleaming, came down in a swoop, piercing the old woman. She gave a quick, shrill cry—and fell back dead. The Jew, terrified, ran away, filling the night air with his piteous wails. The children began to whimper. The hooligans marched off, laughing uproariously.
Midday. It was quiet, innocent, and fresh in the depth of the wood, at the edge of the hollow—and the outer heat penetrated hither only by an infinite coiling as of a scaly serpent impotent at last and deprived of its poison.
Trirodov had found this place for himself and Elisaveta. More than once they came here together—to read, to talk, and to sit a while at the moss-covered stone, out of which, like a strange corporeal ghost, grew up all awry a slender quaking ash. Elisaveta, dressed in her simple short skirt, her long sunburnt arms and part of her legs showing, seemed so tall, so erect, and so graceful at this moss-covered stone.
Elisaveta was reading aloud—poems! How golden her voice sounded with its seductive, sun-like sonorousness! Trirodov listened with a slightly ironical smile to these familiar, infinitely deep and lovely words, so seemingly meaningless in life. When she finished Trirodov said:
“A man’s whole life is barely enough to think out a single idea properly.”
“You mean to say that each should choose for himself but a single idea.”
“Yes. If people could but grasp this fact human knowledge would take an unprecedented step forward. But we are afraid to venture.”
And coarse life already hovered near them behind their backs, and was about to intrude upon them. Elisaveta gave a sudden faint outcry at the unexpectedness of an unseemly apparition. A dirty, rough-looking man, all in tatters, was almost upon them; he had approached them upon the mossy ground as softly as a wood fairy. He stretched out a dirty, horny hand, and asked, not at all in a begging voice:
“Give a hungry man something to buy bread with.”
Trirodov frowned in annoyance, and without looking at the beggar took a silver coin out of the pocket of his waistcoat. He always kept a trifle about him to provide for unexpected meetings. The ragged one smiled, turned the coin, threw it upward, caught it, and hid it adroitly in his pocket.
“I thank your illustrious Honour most humbly,” he said. “May God give you good health, a rich wife, and assured success. Only I want to say something to you.”
He grew silent, and assumed a grave, important air. Trirodov frowned even more intensely than before, and asked stiffly:
“What is it you wish to tell me?”
The ragged one said with frank derision in his voice:
“It’s this. You were reading a book, my good people, but not the right one.”
He laughed a pathetic, insolent laugh. It was as if a timorous dog suddenly began to whine hoarsely, insolently, and cautiously.
Trirodov asked again in astonishment:
“Not the right one, why not?”
The ragged one began to speak with awkward gestures, and he gave the impression that he was able to speak well and eloquently, and that he merely assumed his stupid, unpolished manner of speaking.
“I had been listening to you a long time. I was behind the bush there. I was asleep, I must confess—then you came—chattered away, and waked me. The young lady read well. Clearly and sympathetically. One could see at once that it was from the heart. Only I don’t like the contents, and all that’s in this book.”
“Why don’t you like it?” asked Elisaveta quietly.
“In my opinion,” said the ragged one, “it isn’t your style. It doesn’t fit you somehow.”
“What sort of book ought we to read?” asked Elisaveta.
She gave a light, forced smile. The ragged one sat down on a near-by stump, and answered in no undue haste:
“I am not thinking of you alone, honourable folk, but of all those who parade in fancy gaiters and in velvet dresses, and look scornfully at our brothers.”
“What book?” again asked Elisaveta.
“It’s the gospels that you ought to read,” he replied, as he looked attentively and austerely at Elisaveta, his glance taking in her entire figure from her flushed face down to her feet.
“Why the gospels?” asked Trirodov, who suddenly grew morose. He appeared to be pondering over something, and unable to decide; his indecision seemed to torment him.
The ragged one replied slowly:
“I will tell you why; you’ll find the true facts there. We will take it easy in paradise, while the devils will be pulling the veins out of you in hell. And we shall look on coolly, and applaud gaily with our hands. It ought to prove entertaining.”
He burst out into loud, hoarse laughter—but it seemed more assumed than joyous, and rather abject and hideous. Elisaveta shivered.
“What a wicked person you are! Why do you think that?” said Elisaveta reproachfully.
The ragged one glanced at her crossly, and looked fixedly into her deep blue eyes; then he said with a broad smile:
“Why am I wicked? And are you two good? Wicked or not, the thing is to be just. But I may tell you, sir, that I like you,” he said as he turned suddenly to Trirodov.
“Thank you for your good opinion,” said Trirodov with a slightly ironical smile, “but why should you like me?”
He looked attentively at the ragged one. Then suddenly he felt depressed and apprehensive, and he lowered his eyes. The other slowly lit his foul-smelling pipe, stretched himself, and began after a brief silence:
“Other gentlemen’s mugs are mostly gay, as if they had gorged themselves on a pancake with cream, or had successfully forged their uncle’s will. But you, sir, seem to have the same lean mug always. I have been observing you some time now. It’s evident that you have something on your soul. At least a capital crime.”
Trirodov was silent. He lifted himself on his elbow and looked straight into the man’s eyes with such a fixed, strange expression in his unblinking, commanding, wilful eyes.
The ragged one grew silent, as if he had been congealed for a moment. Then, as if frightened, he suddenly shook himself. He shrank and stooped, and as he took his cap off he revealed an unkempt, tousled head of hair; he mumbled something, slipped away among the bushes, and disappeared quietly—like a fairy of the wood.
Trirodov looked gloomily after him—and was silent. Elisaveta thought that he deliberately avoided looking at her. She was intensely embarrassed, but made an effort to control herself. She laughed, and said with assumed gaiety:
“What a strange creature!”
Trirodov turned upon her his melancholy glances and said quietly:
“He talks like one who knows. He talks like one who sees. But no one can know what happened.”
Oh, if one could only know! If one could only change that which once had happened!
Trirodov recalled again during these days the dark history of Piotr Matov’s father. Trirodov had carelessly entangled himself in this affair, and now it compelled him to have dealings with the blackmailer Ostrov.
Piotr’s father, Dmitry Matov, had fallen into a trap which he had set for others. He had joined a secret revolutionary circle. There they soon discovered his relations with the police, and they decided to detect him and kill him.
One of the members of the circle, the young physician Lunitsin, took the role of betrayer upon himself. He promised to obtain for Dmitry Matov important documents involving many of the members. They made a bargain at a moderate figure. The meeting at which the documents were to be exchanged for the money was designated to take place in a small borough close to the town in which Trirodov then lived.
At the appointed hour Dmitry Matov got out of his train at a little station. It was late in the evening. Matov wore blue spectacles and a false beard, as was agreed upon. Lunitsin waited for him a few yards from the station, and led him to a very solitary spot where was situated the house hired for the purpose.
A supper had been prepared there. Matov ate heartily and drank much wine. His companion began to invent stories about certain suspicious movements he had heard of lately. Little by little Matov grew candid, and began to boast of his connexions with the police, and of the great number of people he had skilfully betrayed.
The door leading to the next room was hung with draperies. Three people were hiding in that room—Trirodov, Ostrov, and the young working man Krovlin. They were listening. Krovlin was intensely excited. He kept on repeating in indignant whispers:
“Oh, the scoundrel! The wretch!”
Ostrov and Trirodov managed to restrain him with great difficulty.
“Be silent. Let him babble out everything,” they said to him.
At last Matov’s impudent boastfulness was too much for Krovlin, who jumped out from his hiding-place, and shouted:
“So that’s how it is! You’ve betrayed our men to the police! And you have the face to confess it!”
Dmitry Matov grew green with fear. He shouted to his companion:
“Kill him! He has been listening to us! Shoot quick! He mustn’t live. He will give us both up!”
At this moment two other men appeared from the same place. Lunitsin aimed his revolver straight at Matov’s forehead, and asked:
“Who ought to be killed, traitor?”
Matov then understood that he had been caught in a trap. But he still made efforts to wriggle out of it, and called all his skill and his insolence to his assistance. They tried him for treachery. At first he defended himself. He said that he had deceived the police, and that he had entered into relations with them merely to get important information for his comrades. But his protestations soon grew weaker. Then he began to beg for mercy. He spoke of his wife and of his children.
Matov’s entreaties failed to impress any one. His judges were adamant. His fate was decided. The sentence of hanging was passed unanimously.
Matov was bound. The noose was already thrown about his neck. Then Trirodov intervened:
“What are you going to do with him? It will be difficult to take him away, and it is dangerous to leave him here.”
“Who will come here?” said Lunitsin. “At best only by chance. Let him hang here until he’s found.”
“Let us bury him here in the garden, like a dog,” suggested Krovlin.
“Give him to me,” said Trirodov. “I will dispose his body in such a way that no one will find it.”
The others assented eagerly. Ostrov said with a scornful smile:
“Will you try your chemistry on him, Giorgiy Sergeyevitch? Well, it’s all the same to us. A bad man ought to be punished—make even a skeleton of him for your use if you like.”
Trirodov drew a flagon containing a colourless liquid from his pocket.
“Now this will put him to sleep,” he said.
He injected with a small syringe several drops of the liquid under Dmitry Matov’s skin. Matov gave a feeble cry and fell heavily to the floor. In a few moments the body lay before them, blue and apparently lifeless. Lunitsin examined Matov and said:
“He’s done for.”
The men left one by one. Trirodov alone remained with Matov’s body. Trirodov took off Matov’s clothes and burned them in the stove. He made several more injections of the same colourless liquid.
The night passed slowly. Trirodov lay on the sofa without taking his clothes off. He slept badly, tormented by oppressive dreams. He awoke several times.
Dmitry Matov lay in the next room on the floor. The liquid, injected into his blood, acted strangely. The body contracted in proper proportion, and wasted very quickly. Within several hours it lost more than half of its weight, and assumed very small dimensions; it became very soft and pliant. But all its proportions were faithfully preserved.
Trirodov made up the body into a large parcel, covered it over with plaid, and bound it with straps. It resembled a pillow wrapped up in plaid. Trirodov left by the morning train for home, carrying with him Dmitry Matov’s body.
At home Trirodov put the body into a vessel containing a greenish liquid compounded by himself. Matov’s body shrunk in it even more. It had become barely more than seven inches long. But as before all its proportions remained inviolate.
Then Trirodov prepared a special plastic substance, in which he wrapped Matov’s body. He pressed it compactly into the form of a cube, and placed it on his writing-table. And thus a thing that once had been a man remained there a thing among other things.
Nevertheless Trirodov was right when he told Ostrov that Matov had not been killed. Yes, notwithstanding his strange form and his distressing immobility, Dmitry Matov was not dead. The potentiality of life slept dormant in that solid object. Trirodov thought more than once as to whether the time had not come to rehabilitate Matov and return him to the world of the living.
He had not decided upon this before. But he was confident that he would succeed in doing this without hindrance. The process of rehabilitation required a tranquil and isolated place.
In a little more than a year at the beginning of the summer Trirodov decided to begin the process of rehabilitation. He prepared a large vat over six feet in length. He filled it with a colourless liquid, and lowered into it the cube containing Matov’s body.
The slow process of rehabilitation began. Unperceived by the eye, the cube began to thaw and to swell. It needed a half-year before it would thaw out sufficiently to permit the body to peer through.